Except that the lives of children — abused and neglected children — could be at stake in this argument over meanings.

The Christie administration has issued new terms establishing additional possible outcomes of child abuse/neglect investigations. There were, up to now, just two alternative outcomes: Cases were either classified as “established” and pursued or were classified as “unfounded” and dropped.

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But what if “unfounded” really meant “unable to substantiate but possibly true”?

This unmonitored grey area has sometimes ended in tragedy — as when an Irvington child was found dead of abuse after allegations had been dismissed on four previous occasions as “unfounded.”

Now the N.J. Dept. of Children and Families has cobbled together new possible investigation outcomes it says will help keep potentially dangerous grey-area cases on the state’s protective radar screen.

The new outcomes, set forth in regulations drawn up under the supervision of the department’s commissioner, Dr. Allison Blake, take effect today. They are: 1. “substantiated”; 2. “established”: 3. “not established” or 4. “unfounded.”

Skeptics are wondering whether the department — dogged by ghastly cases and controversy in the past and now under a federal court-monitoring regimen — is capable of sorting out the new categories.

The department says the new categories dovetail with other ongoing reform efforts.

But the department’s efforts to make distinctions among the four categories tend toward the Talmudic in their intricate complexities, doubters complain.

Will the new outcomes categories avert cases like the horrific one in Camden in which a child was beheaded by his addled, drug addicted mother after being returned to her custody under a court order?

Or will the new categories only encourage potentially lethal bureaucratic obfuscation and vacillation?

One of the leading skeptics of the new system is state Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Mercer. “It could very well jeopardize children’s lives,” she says.

She says it would be easier for the child-protection department to train staff and administer safeguards than under the four-tier system. Her way, Turner adds, has a “middle ground” allowing social services to be provided in uncertain, borderline cases and requiring a parent to accept those services.

Turner’s measure passed both houses of the legislature without a dissenting vote but was pocket vetoed in January 2012 by Gov. Christie, that is, was allowed to die without his signature or a direct veto when the legislative session adjourned. Turner has reintroduced the legislation.

Also skeptical of the Christie administration’s four-tier reform when it was unveiled in the regulation-adoption process was the Advocates for Children of New Jersey, one of the leading champions of child welfare in the state.

The organization commented that it was “not sure” the Dept. of Children and Families’ new system of investigative outcomes “provides the clarity ... needed to accomplish the intended goal.”

It expressed concerns that the new approach “may further confuse an already murky process of investigations and findings.”

The advocacy organization said confusion in administering the new approach could “put children at risk of harm or may defeat the intended goal of the proposal. ...”

The Dept. of Children and Families says it addressed concerns voiced during the regulatory hearing process and tweaked its new regulations to minimize confusion. Staff training took place in anticipation of the new system’s inauguration today.

“I hope it works,” says Sen. Turner. “I really do.”

Meanwhile, she say, she intends to pursue her own thwarted proposal in the legislature.